{"id":4678,"date":"2025-06-02T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-02T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/?p=4678"},"modified":"2025-05-30T14:34:12","modified_gmt":"2025-05-30T19:34:12","slug":"cchr-protests-coercive-psychiatric-practices-calls-for-human-rights-based-mental-health-treatment-based-on-consent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/2025\/06\/02\/cchr-protests-coercive-psychiatric-practices-calls-for-human-rights-based-mental-health-treatment-based-on-consent\/","title":{"rendered":"CCHR Protests Coercive Psychiatric Practices, Calls for Human Rights-Based Mental Health Treatment Based on Consent"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

<\/em>The Citizens Commission on Human Rights advocates for the adoption of international standards in the U.S.\u00a0that call for ending involuntary mental health treatment and ensuring human rights in the field of mental health.<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

by\u00a0\u00a0CCHR National Affairs Office<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A coalition of human rights advocates, civil rights leaders, clergy, medical professionals, and attorneys, led by the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), protested at the Los Angeles site of the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association to call for ending forced mental health treatment.  That behavioral treatment includes involuntary institutionalization, nonconsensual electroconvulsive therapy (ECT, or electroshock), forced drugging, and the use of restraints and seclusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The May 17 protest focused on the tragic deaths of people, especially young people, who died from mental health treatment involving restraints.  Among them were Ja\u2019Ceon Terry, a 7-year-old who suffocated while being restrained<\/a> at a residential behavioral treatment center in Kentucky, and Cornelius Frederick,16, who died after being restrained<\/a> at a Michigan facility for youth with behavioral problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUntil coercive and deadly practices in mental health are prohibited, vulnerable individuals \u2013 especially children \u2013 will continue to suffer,\u201d said Jan Eastgate, president of CCHR International, speaking at the protest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rev. Fred Shaw, Jr., president of the Inglewood South Bay branch of the NAACP, spoke to the gathering about the disproportionate use of restraints on African Americans. Research<\/a> has indicated that Black psychiatric inpatients are nearly twice as likely to be subjected to physical, mechanical, and chemical restraint compared to White patients and more likely to be restrained longer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guidance<\/a> issued jointly in 2023 by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) lays out steps towards ending coercive practices and \u201cestablishing mental health services that are respectful of human dignity and comply with international human rights norms and standards.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those standards call for \u201cfree and informed consent as the basis of all mental health-related intervention,\u201d as well as patients\u2019 \u201ceffective and meaningful participation\u201d in mental health treatment, according to the WHO\/OHCHR guidance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The World Psychiatric Association has committed to ending coercive practices, but the American Psychiatric Association (APA) has not yet come into alignment with this international standard.  CCHR has called on the APA to issue a formal statement in support of the elimination of coercive psychiatric practices and involuntary detentions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the protest, CCHR also pointed to the failure of massive federal mental health funding to reduce the U.S. suicide rate.  While mental health funding totaled some $329 billion in 2022, a 315% increase from 2000, the suicide rate<\/a> hit a record high in 2022, a 37% increase since 2000, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).  Over 49,000 people died by suicide in 2023, or one death every 11 minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CCHR continues to call on Congress to redirect mental health funding to programs and services that provide effective help for Americans experiencing mental health issues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights advocates for the adoption of international standards in the U.S.\u00a0that call for ending involuntary mental health treatment and ensuring human rights in the field of mental health. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"The Citizens Commission on Human Rights advocates for the adoption of international standards in the U.S.\u00a0that call for ending involuntary mental health treatment and ensuring human rights in the field of mental health.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[154,125,58,62,64,9,21,148,207],"class_list":["post-4678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-muddy-river-newsletter","tag-coercive-psychiatry","tag-funding","tag-human-rights","tag-informed-consent","tag-involuntary-commitment","tag-restraints","tag-suicide","tag-united-nations","tag-who"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6NMpC-1ds","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4678\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}